Ch. 1: The Dreamer
Back to The Men in Brown '' The horns blew in thunder; not like thunder, for my trumpets outrang the very thunder itself. The horns crashed and reechoed far over the shadowed cities and the clouded houses, and echoes came, grim and murmering, from beneath the earth, as the holy mountain growled in its’ belly. I heeded it not. For though I would not suffer Him to defile the folly of my fathers, still I reck not of it: for Eru is only a fallacy of the fainéant Gods, invoked to support their biddings. This my Servant has revealed. He is not coming. I do not wish Him to usurp the glory that is Mine by right; and has He not said so Himself? '' '' I stand upon my ship the Alcarondas, Castle of the Sea, as with many oars the slaves propel us forward; for there is no wind. The Eagles pass with processing majesty of storm overhead, vast eagle-clouds taloned with thunder: but they no longer speak, no longer shout stern warnings. It is even as He said. The Gods are bound by the laws of their own magic principle which gives them might in the world; He said that if I but followed such and such a course of action I would tie the very hands of the Weaklings of the West and I would be immune from their mighty wrath. '' '' Yet even against that have we prepared. In my holds and in the mouths of my thunderdarts are weapons we designed that blend our full Atalantic power with the fabric of the earth and the engines wrought from it. Let the Gods cast down their darts; mine may cast down them. '' '' We have passed the Proscribed Line. The last smoke from the smouldering Pillar sinks under the grey sea. All is silence as we row, over the stumps of islands that once, long ago, cast such a net about this land as even I might pause upon: but the Gods deemed them safe, for only Men stood free of them, and the great Lord we worship had been cast into exile; and they unmade their own protections. '' '' Even I, who rise every morning to gaze out upon the splendor of the green land of Atalantis, over the palaces and buildings that flash like carven gems, and gleam in the gloam as if light was wrought with their cement; who have seen the marvel of the blue deep and the multifared hues of green and violet that dance upon it: even I stand amazed at the land I am approaching. Like to a cloud of dazzling green picked out with points of fire and speared with burning crystal, the Elvenhome fills the sea before me, and around it the bay is like the blueness of the sky upon a summer high noon, and so limpid the water I can see the shadow of my ship flow along the bottom countless fathoms underneath. But my ships pass it by on left and on right, covering the sea like an archipelago of ten thousand towering isles processing ponderously past, and our black and gold and scarlet sails shut off the setting sun from the shores of the Elves: and wailing and lamentation mount from the Valar-spies, like Men-children in the Wild who think the Sun at night is dead. So cowers the Elder Kindred, that set themselves so lofty above us the Hithercomers! But we ignore them, and pay no heed to Elvenhome: for before us are the Mountains at the Edge of the World. '' '' So high those heights of horror rear, as not even to be seen in Middle-earth, though one were to pass to the very Lands of the Sun and force the leaguer of the guarded Havens, and so come to the terrible height that is like no other. These peaks seem not to be ice-crowned; they are wrought of ice, or of stone as clear and white as ice, and they are high as spires of stars, so high as to make the depths of the sea seem but puddles were they sunk in them; and they gleam like to pearl and sparkle as with dust of gem, and every beach is a beach of jewels, like rainbows that are chewed up by some ancient surf. A rift in them lets through the crimson gold of evening sun, and my sails seize all the glory and splendor themselves. And I am heartened, for is there not a rift in the iron webs of the Gods, and do I not stand in position to enter it? Even as my sails take the Sun, so take I deathlessness from the Deathless. '' '' That is when I lift my eyes upward. '' '' I could not see it before, for Their clouds were all around it; but cloud and wind alike are gone, and the Throne stands before me naked, and I reel at the sight. A mountain impossibly steep. A height that rises into the very stars, so that the airs themselves are left beneath; and still ice crowns it, ice whiter than any snow, which in the sunset shines not red as do the Walls, but a terrible, utter white. The Bay is silent. There are no waves, and even those we rouse fade before they reach the shore. The Walls are silent. The Oiolossë is silent. I cannot cast my eyes from that dreadful height. The soundless shores, awful as doom, swell in the sides of my vision. The immutable mountain, colder than death, whiter than thought, terrible as the shadow of the One I have denied. The Valar say nothing. The Gods say nothing. I reel, putting out my hand to clutch my throne. My heart misgives me. Fool! How can any force or power cast down the Powers of the West? '' '' The touch steadies me. Strength flows into me from the throne; for He wrought it Himself, Servant of the Strong, and He told me I could conquer. I set my face like flint. I am rowed to the beach, standing in my armour of black and scarlet, with my crown set with amber burning gold upon my head. The boat grates upon jewels, upon a shingle of precious stones, every pebble like a drop of the rainbow. Like glass rise the Walls far above me. Still all is silent. I lift my foot from off the boat, and I set it down upon the rainbow sand. I have cast all turn behind me. I sound the horns, and I lay claim to the land, since none appear to contest me for it. '' '' Like ants my men slowly disembark, and the contrivances of Sauron are ponderously unloaded, and day after silent day we march farther up the green defile, and we climb the hill of precious dust and encamp upon the sands of sparkled gold and the meads of enchanted grass undying, of such green as swells our hearts. And we bathe in waters of purity, and power seeps into our steeping flesh, and we drink from fountains immortal, and we feel deathless waters coursing in our veins, and we laugh: for age drops from the old, and weariness from the weary, and the weakest galley-slave of Pharazôn is now a living god. And we mount into the elvish city, and it is deserted, and I have my throne carried ashore, and I set it up in the very Hall of Ingwë. '' '' Nine days and thirty have now passed since our setting sail, and still the Gods make no sign. Perhaps they have already fled. '' '' A great sound descends like falling fog from every height around us. I hurry from the Elvish city: my weapons are all upon the plain and have not yet been brought uphill. We empty the city, turning our tremendous engines of power toward the Topless Mountain, from which the sound is still falling: a great voice like the voice of the sky and the voice of the sea and the voice of the earth all speaking as one, and what it saith we do not know, for words like chunks of stone fall like castles about our ears, some dreadful tongue of the Gods never speakable by fleshly throats. '' '' How can this be? We were in the plain, but now we stand under the very shadow of the fearsome heights, though not a man of us has stirred. I cry out, and though my voice cannot be heard in the rending of the reeling of the very dome of heaven, my men see my motion and we unleash our devices of power, a futile gesture, a thumbing of the nose at a very Universe coming down on our heads. Is that cloud, that falling mass that fills the sky and eye and mind, or are the very hills shedding themselves and the mountains shrugging off their own shapes? I do not know. I only know that we have lost. I only know that we are dead. '' '' '' ' ' ' Chapter One: Dreams ' “I’ve had the same thing for months now.” said Christopher. “That dream. That dream of me feeling like God until God dumps the world on top of me.” His brother Stephen only looked at him, grave and a little concerned. His older brother had in many ways a vivid imagination, but this sounded somehow….. different…. than his usual stuff. Dreams were, well, creepy, and always mysterious. He seldom remembered his. But then he was only 11 himself so he had only a few years of dreams to remember. “Do you think it means anything?” Christopher said anxiously, swinging one foot. They were sitting in one of their favorite spots, the overgrown junk tractor in the rear of the sagging carriage house behind their yard. “Sure it does.” Stephen said with a sudden impish grin. “It means you’re going completely bonkers.” “Bonkers.” groaned his brother. “You sound like you’re from the 40s.” “Well, Uncle John says it.” “He’s an old man. Old men are supposed to talk funny.” “Retard.” “Ah, now you sound like you’re normal.” “Well, I ain’t.” said Stephen, his gloomy mood settling on him again. “You aren’t either. We’re not normal and we should quit pretending.” “Hey, it’s not like we’re freaks.” “But we are. I mean, look at the kids we go to school with. Is any of them even remotely like us? Do they even understand us when we start talking? Or do they run off howling with laughter at our big words and sissy speech?” “Actually they say pussy.” “I never have been able to figure out why a kitty is supposed to be an insult.” Stephen said. “Or why Mom nearly whacked me when I used it in front of her.” “Oh, some jerk probably turned it into a swear word.” “I dunno.” Stephen sighed. “They use it like the books use sissy, but then they start guffawing like Orcs. Probably has some sick slang meaning.” “I hate other people.” “Don’t say that too loud. Here comes Charlene.” “Groan. I wish we had a G.R.O.S.S. club.” “Let’s start singing the GROSS anthem! One—Two---“ “OH-h-o GRO-O-OSS,” both boys started to bawl, “GREATEST club in the CO-os-moss…” They were referring, of course, to Calvin & Hobbes. “It’s pronounced grose.” the small slight girl who had approached said tartly, flicking her flaxen ponytail to one side. She wore a pink shirt and pale pants that came only to her calves. “Breeches.” thought Christopher. She had a thin pinched pale face and a slightly catty expression. “GROSS!” both boys howled. “And it’s Calvin and Hobbs. Short O.” “HOBBES!” the boys shouted. Using a long O. “And it’s pronounced Broach, not'' Brooch.” she said, referring to the odd habit some people have of pronouncing brooch as ‘broach’. “BROOOCH!” roared the boys. “You boys are hopeless.” “I know,” said Christopher, “we’ve been trying our hardest.” Charlene hopped up on the tractor hood, pushing back the thick bittersweet vines coming through the dashboard. The new green buds broke under her hands and a faint green-apple smell went up. “What were you guys up to?” “Saying how much we hate other people.” said Christopher impishly. “Serious?” “Yeah.” said Stephen. “You boys are weird.” “Hey, we gave up on being normal ages ago.” “Stay like that.” said Charlene bitterly. “Normal boys are gross. You two at least are just weird.” “Lesser of two evils…” “Hmph.” She put her small nose in the air. Though almost 12 Charlene looked younger. They sat on the tractor for a while, not saying anything, staring moodily across the old back driveway into the tangle of vines that mounted the side of the ruinous carriage house. The roof was already caving in one spot, and Christopher had seen a raccoon worming its’ way in. He wondered what Old Man Ebeneezer made of that, and the thought made him laugh. “What?” said Charlene. “I was just thinking what a fit Old Man Ebeneezer must have thrown when he saw raccoons in his precious junk.” The dour oldish man in a green truck who owned the building kept it carefully locked and boarded up even while the roof fell apart: hence the nickname. “His name’s Paulson, don’t be so mean.” “If I really wanted to be mean I could call him Skinflint Noodleface or something.” “Lesser of two evils.” she sighed. “Ha ha.” “Ha. Ha. Ha.” she retorted. They stayed silent for a little, the boys drumming their feet, Charlene crouched froglike with chin on her knees. “Hey, ssh! Someone’s coming.” said Stephen. The back drive met Boyd St as it turned during a sharp descent. Odd old houses seemed stuck randomly on the hill, green banks of lawn at all angles. The back drive went behind the backyards of a row of old apartment houses, tall and narrow, along a hillside back street joining Boyd; it was hung by trees like a tunnel, walled by mouldering hulks of ancient vehicles buried under piles of bittersweet and leaning branches. It plunged downhill, past two driveways to lower yards dug back into the hill, and met a level open ledge of weeds, half of which was a broad puddle-filled grey dirt drive ending in the tangle of jumbled brick factory outbuildings below them. Where the children were was a vacant but locked house, small and square with an overhung lawn fenced by lilacs, on the left, where the drive met the street. Up the drive a tall thin rugged-looking man was slowly walking an old dark-green bike. A bent wire basket clung to the handlebars, as usual full of something. He had a dark-green buttoned shirt and brown corduroy pants, and a stubble of at least two days on his long brown face. His black hair was streaked with grey. “Hey, it’s the Wizard!” drawled Christopher. Ever since they were little the mysterious man had captivated them with his odd abstracted look and something else, an air or glimpse of something about him, his dark intense face, the odd grim way he sometimes had of smiling, the ironic light in his eyes, that had instantly reminded the boys of—well, wizards. “Hi, WizZord.” said Stephen. He’d only just grown out of an odd lisp. “You call him ''what?” It was the first time Charlene had heard the nickname. The strange man gave an equally strange smile. He had a long folded lined face; it looked both younger and older than he was, especially with the smile. His eyes gleamed with wry, profound amusement. “Greetings, lads. Morning, lass.” he said gravely, touching his brow. Between them a weird, almost palpable field lay, of combined attraction and barrier; the shyness of disparate age, as well as the fascination a compelling character always has for children. He seemed to feel it as well, for he did not linger, heading on up Boyd St as he always did. “And you say '' we’re'' weird.” said Christopher when he was safely gone. “You’re boy weird. He’s like another-planet-weird. Is that why you call him Wizard?” “Yeah, he just has such a strange air of wisdom and lore,” said Stephen, half exaggerating. “I’ve seen him carry a staff sometimes.” “He even struck a blue light on it.” '' “What??” '' said Charlene. “Hobbit reference, sorry.” giggled Christopher. “Now I’m really never going to read that book.” “But then you’ll never understand what we’re saying!” “I never do anyway, you weirdos.” “Better than being sick-os.” said Stephen morosely. “Good point.” Charlene fell into a brooding silence. “So. How’s the weather?’ said Christopher brightly. “We actually got some rain the other day.” his brother said dryly. “I know, it’s like we’re in a spring drought.” said Charlene. “I mean, April is supposed to be rainy, and that’s the first real rain in, what, a month?” “And so little snow.” “Think we’ll have any more weirdness this year?” said Christopher hopefully. “Last year was just epic.” “How can you say that, I lost my best friend at the carnival.” said Charlene. “Hey, c’mon, you have to admit that seeing the Wild Man was totally awesome.” The previous year, 2011, had been plagued by an incredible series of disasters and unexplained phenomena centering around their small town of Winsted in NW CT. Following the worst winter in 15 years, in which snow lay 4 feet deep in the woods clear into April, there had been rumors of an attack on a police station by wild terrorists. This paled however beside the catastrophe of mid-June, when the long Highland Lake in a hollow of the hills just above them had experienced the world’s weirdest tsunami: the entire Third Bay had peeled it’s water up like a slab and cascaded onto a large island, causing extensive flooding and damage and many deaths. A flash flood hit the downtown that very day, and the big flood control berm upriver of Winsted had simply ceased to exist. The boys had gone up there, of course; so had every kid in Winsted. Not long before this an eerie beacon of green light had appeared in the woods, cause undiscovered. In July there had been more sudden tidal waves in the lake, as well as a bizarre sulpherous fog. Then in August the Fireman’s Carnival was disrupted by the sudden transformation of about half the local teenagers into: dragons. The dragons had massacred half the crowd. YouTube videos had caught some of the action, and there was no doubt: they really were dragons. That night another local legend, the 1895 caveman sighting called the Wild Man of Winsted, had suddenly come to life, stalking down every road in town, juggling police cars, a huge hairy thing ten feet high, manlike and naked. The boys had seen him, of course; it was a frightening and wonderful sight. In the autumn there had been a violent explosion of phenomena in the north, up by Colebrook, and another in Burrville south of them that resembled an eruption. Then just before Halloween an autumn blizzard dropped 15 inches of wet snow, snapping half the trees in town and knocking out power for weeks. It had been like camping in your own house. “Well, it’s 2012, the world’s supposed to end.” Another “end of world” hype had been centering around that date lately, mostly due to the Mayan calendar. “I know,” sighed Christopher, “we’ll be watching The Hobbit in the theater…the credits roll…and the world ends.” “Hey, it can’t end, Part 2 of The Hobbit still has to come out!” shouted Stephen. “The world is saved once again by the hands of hobbits.” “You guys are crazy.” “Crazy or weird? Make up your mind.” retorted Christopher. “It’s the same thing.” “No, it’s not.” said Stephen. “Crazy means you’re partly insane. Weird just means you’re off the normal.” “I’m going to Google it.” said Charlene. She pulled out her cell phone, causing the boys’ mouths to drop. “What?” “Your mom let you have a cell phone??” “Why not? Everybody does. And it’s not like my dad’s around to say no.” “Our parents only have one cell phone, and that’s Dad’s.” said Stephen. “I envy you guys sometimes.” sighed Charlene as she twiddled buttons. “You actually have two parents. In the house. Not fighting.” “It’s called a normal family.” “Well, it ain’t normal.” she said pensively. “I mean, if ‘normal’ means ‘like everybody else’. You’re like the only people I know with a real family.” “The Hesters have a real family too.” “They fight.” she said. “Really.” “What was I looking up again?” “Crazy and weird.” Stephen told her. “How could I possibly forget. Hmm…yup, crazy: mentally deranged, demented, insane….impractical, senseless….informal or wacky… What’s weird? '' Ooh, this ''is '' weird. Take a look. Can you even understand that?” The boys craned to look. She had a new IPHONE with a wide flat screen, and displayed on that was the definition. “Weird: supernatural twisting of fate to bring about ill luck; curse or doom; curse made tanglible or personified. 2. One who is involved with the casting of weirds, a Fate, a witch “the Weird Sisters”. 3. involving the supernatural, uncanny, or merely bizarre, 4. odd or unusual.” Stephen read out. “That’s really deep.” mused Charlene. “I like it.” said Christopher. “I ought to memorise that and shock my teacher the next time she says ''weird.” “You mean Ms. Olsen?” “No, Ms. Bailey. You know, the cute one?” “She’s way too old to date you, Chris.” sang Charlene cattily. Chris growled and made a pretend swipe at her. “You know I hate mushy stuff.” he said. “You’re weird. Practically every guy in school wants to have sex.” “Hey, that’s a forbidden word around here!” both boys exclaimed. They looked so genuinely infuriated that Charlene stopped teasing. “I’ve always wondered: why '' do'' you guys never talk dirty?” she said instead. “Because we were well brought up.” said Christopher loftily. “And we’re Christian.” put in Stephen. “Now that really is weird.” she said. Both boys gave her a suspicious look, and sure enough she was snickering. All three started laughing. “You say weird one more time…!” threatened Christopher. “Weird. Weird. Weird.” said Charlene. She jumped off the tractor, laughing, as both boys lunged at her, and they chased her a few times through the backyard before tagging her. After that they felt like doing '' something, so they played hide-and-seek. By that time their parents had come out on the third and second floor porches of the big square apartment house on the corner of Boyd and the back street and were calling them in for supper. '' The roof rose, huge and ragged, far above him. Great crannies and black rifts, between vast jutting jags; like ten thousand giant rocks all jammed together at once, leaving this cave, like some vast accidental masonry. Calcite had welded the stones together in many places, and huge trunklike stone icicles oozed their way down almost to the floor, where high sharp needles and thick drippy columns rose up to meet them. And encrusted by the calcite, often fused to the floor or nearly entombed by the vivid drippings, an army lay sleeping. Some were no more than a foot, or a hand, protruding from the clear glaseous stone; others had great pillars rooted on their chests like narrow trees, their legs and heads free; some had stone knobs crusted on face or body; and yet they all still lived. Unbreathing, unmoving, unrotting, undying, in marvelous armour of metals not even modern technology could produce, surrounded by complex and evil-looking engines now dormant but so potent, he felt, that should they come to life they could bring down gods. Cave opened from cave, on and on for miles in the ruins of the mountains: the Caves of the Forgotten, sealed away forever. '' '' He bent closer. Higher than the rest, inside a stalactite of clear stone, a king lay entombed, his hand alone exposed, palm open as in some last act of defiance. He looked at the long, powerful fingers, lying like a frozen statue under the fallen hills, with a curious, deadly fascination. '' '' And one finger twitched. '' Christopher really hated having to go to school in the morning. You had to get up at the ungodly hour of 7 and stagger around the house like a zombie while Mom went into her usual tizzy trying to get you going, until you stood, dazed, a huge backpack crushing you to the ground, out on the street corner. They lived in a tenement right on the corner where the level back street Hubbard climbed to meet Boyd partway up its’ plunge into Winsted. The small L-shaped front yard was boxed in by a tall privet hedge, a bright green with new growth. An ancient maple whose short corded trunk seemed to have been twisted in a spiral by some unseen giant, grew beside the sidewalk downhill from the corner on the Boyd St side. There had been a tire swing from one big crooked limb, but Dad took it down last year and Mom was talking of a garden there. Stephen stood next to him: though Christopher was in middle school now and Stephen in elementary, his bus came within a few minutes of Christopher’s. The bus stopped, with the traditional screech of brakes all school busses seem to have: it must be some kind of law. Chris climbed on. Stephen waved. Chris avoided everyone’s eyes on the bus—most were still strangers, and he really didn’t feel like altering that—and sat in the first empty spot. Leaning on the window he looked out. The spring scenery, pale greens and thin cauliflower yellow-greens and various shades of new-green, passed steadily by. At the bottom of Boyd the bus turned right up Prospect, which ran along the hill high above Main St and gave a nice view of the Winsted valley, Main St like an arrow and the spire of St. Joseph’s rising above it. Hills rose on either side. Then past the old railroad tenements and the dead factories, fifty years forsaken on the edge of Mad River passing in a deep stony channel between them and Main. Past the ballpark where the big kids hung out and drugs were dealt, or so it was said. His bus always went to school the long way around, turning right, away from Winsted, going under the high concrete wall with the pines above it and a glimpse or two on the left of graves from the cemetery on the hill. Graves of Arheled.'' He wondered where he’d heard that phrase, but he always seemed to associate it with that cemetery. Down past the red industrial building that said THE TIMOTHY AND PICKE T CO. on it, a wood of aspens with rusting old tractor-trailers, and then a trucking place, and the lot the school busses lived in, and a left turn over the river and up New Street. The map called this area Mooreville; there were a lot of nice country houses along a back road, after the highway bridge, and the bus picked up more kids there. Toiling slowly up the long hill by which New St mounts over the highway, a man was pushing an old green bike. Chris looked again. The bike had a basket in front, just like the Wizard’s, but it was more sea-green, and the young man walking it was different. Reddish hair, a sharp intense face with a grim expression, and a brown leather coat. He was balancing an immense black garbage bag on that basket, and through the holes in it Christopher saw soda cans. The brown man—he had brown pants as well as that brown coat—looked suddenly up and met Christopher’s eyes as the bus passed. Deep burning eyes, bright and scorching as flame, stabbed his; and then the bus drew away, and the dreadful contact was broken. Christopher fell back in his seat, shaken, as the bus turned left. Toward Winsted, and school. Stephen’s bus was almost full and he had some trouble finding a seat. The bus had already started forward when he saw the empty window seat beside a girl with pale yellow hair, hanging curly around her face. “Uh—anyone’s place?” he said to her, hanging on to the seat for dear life. “Oh, I’m sorry. I should take the window if I’m alone, but I got talking.” the girl said, laughing as she slid over to the window. The niceness of her manners was a considerable surprise. Stephen sat down self-consciously and didn’t look at her, saying nothing. “What’s your name?” the girl said. “Uh? Stephen. I’m Stephen.” “You’re almost as bad as Forest.” she said, sounding amused. “Who?” “A kid I know. I’m Mindy, by the way. Nice to meet you.” “Same to you. Why is it bad to be like Forest?” Mindy laughed. “Well, actually it turns out he’s the brother of my best friend Bell, but they didn’t know it till last year when their parents married. He’s just like super-shy and quiet, and you’re lucky if he’ll even say Uh when you talk to him. Lives at the little island, down by Second Bay.” “Where?” “Oh, sorry. Up by the lake. It has three bays: First, right up the road from town; Second a mile or so down, and Third at the far end, out where the lunatic flood was last year. I’ve never managed to bike around it, it’s like three miles long, seriously. All the people there are either rich or weird.” “You mean eccentric?” “Yeah, I guess that’s better. You know, the roughneck old fellow who cuts his own wood and does everything himself, that sort of guy. I guess Bell’s folks count as rich; they’re both teachers.” The bus, not having far to go, pulled in at this moment into Mary Hinsdale Elementary and came to a stop. “Well, see-ya, Stephen.” said Mindy. “Oh gosh. That rhymes. Remind me to try turning that into a poem.” “You write poems?” “Nah, I only try to write them. I usually only make it for a couple lines before I break down. Well, nice meeting you.” “Hey, nice meeting you too.” Stephen said in a rush. Recess arrived, finally. Stephen merged quite gladly with the jumbled crowds, trying mainly not to be noticed. Until he could get outside, a crowd was just like a thicket when it came to hiding. The less you were noticed, the less you were picked on. Safely outside, he managed to get over to the bushes edging the field behind the playscape. A broad stream splashed over rocks under young ash and maple trees, and on the far side one of Winsted’s typical cute back lanes wandered above the brook, bordered by tall thin old houses, until it turned uphill to meet the main road. He wormed his way upstream through the brush and found a good spot, where he could just sit there and stare at the stream until the bell rang for lunch. “There you are.” said Mindy, pushing through after him. “I looked all over for you and then I saw you sneak off.” “I just like being out of sight.” “Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Mindy, squatting on the little sandy bank beside Stephen’s rock. “I usually just find my friends and we zone everything else out. Sometimes the boys will be nice to you, and then it’s a lot of fun, but boys—you never can tell with them.” “Which is pretty much what we say about girls.” Mindy laughed. “I miss Bell.” she said suddenly. “She used to go to school here, but they homeschool now.” “Cool.” said Stephen. Some of the children at his church were homeschooled. “Yeah, I wish my parents would homeschool me. But then I’d probably miss seeing my friends.” “You’re a lot nicer than most girls.” “Hey, thanks. Yeah, I guess I’m weird that way. I just like being nice. Plus my mom taught me manners.” she laughed. “Of course, I give as good as I get when around the others, cause you have to be a little rude or you get picked on, but yeah, if I don’t have to I always try to be nice.” “What do you think caused all that weirdness?” Stephen said. “Last year, I mean.” Mindy’s eyes shone as she leaned toward him. “I think there was some kind of secret superhero war or alien battle going on.” she said conspiratorially. “You know, where the superheros start fighting and they’re trying to keep it under cover but some of the fight leaks out? I mean, it’s the only explanation that makes sense.” “Superheros are in comic books.” “Oh, you never know, there just might be real people out there with superpowers.” Mindy said airily. “Or maybe the dragons did it!” Dragons were a byword in Winsted since the carnival, what with the candlelight vigils everyone had had to suffer through and the overkill of sappy stories in the papers and in sermons and speeches. “I saw the Wild Man.” “You did?? I must have been the only one in Winsted who slept through it.” she complained. “Maybe he and the dragons were the secret fighting superheros!” “That actually makes sense.” “I have my moments.” Mindy said archly. “Do you ever have dreams?” Stephen said after a companionable silence. Mindy shook her head pertly. “Nope.” she said. “I mean, of course I dream, but all I ever remember are little random scraps of insanity, like me sipping milk from a fireplace or something.” “My brother has really epic dreams.” “Actually,” said Mindy suddenly, “I did have one dream last night; all I remember is some old man with a powerful face saying in some weird special-effects voice, ‘The Men in Brown are come to town.’ It was creepy.” “The…” Stephen’s voice trailed off. Vague images of powerful forms in great sweeping robes of rich and deep and pale brown stalking ponderously through a forest swam dimly in his mind. “And yes, I think he was wearing brown.” “That is interesting.” said Stephen. “No, we haven’t dreamed of brown men. Just creepy Numenorean kings in forgotten caves.” “What?” “Lord-of-the-Rings stuff.” “Cool. I’ve only seen the movies. Oh bother, there’s the bell. Well, see you later.” “See you.” He met her again on the bus, but she was sitting with a friend. “Where do you live?” she said. “Hubbard? Cool; I’m at Rockwell St. Just over the hill.” “And across the ravine…and up that Lake Street hill.” “Oh, come on, you can walk.” Back to The Men in Brown